Tag Archives: USA

Post navigation

We were recently mentioned in the 2013 Annual Report for our Rock the Vote Campaign. It means a lot to us that our efforts are not only recognized, but also felt by the entire SUNY Oswego community.

Here’s the what our administration had to say about student involvement, engagement, and collaboration between organizations. It’s been nearly two years since our campaign, but we are still thankful for all of the organizations who played a huge role in making Rock the Vote at SUNY Oswego the success that it was.

Serving and solving

“From strengthening democracy to advancing health and safety, from developing new educational tools to aiding disaster stricken families, members of our college community played constructive roles in the wider world in 2012-13.

WTOP election night broadcast

As the academic year began, the 2012 election was on the horizon and the college‘s Civic Engagement Coalition coordinated its first comprehensive voter registration and education campaign. Film and discussion series, a debate and other events built engagement with the democratic process and registered more than 1,300 voters. The project culminated in an election night party in the Campus Center as returns rolled in.

Some 70 students representing student media WTOP-TV, WNYO-FM and the Oswegonian covered election night like never before, filling four hours of live air with remote broadcasts, roundtable discussion and constant updates via social media, providing Oswego County‘s only TV coverage and streaming it online. “There‘s nothing ‘student’ or ‘pretend’ or ‘practice’ about what we just did,” WTOP-TV station manager Ben Gordon said with pride as the marathon telecast wound down.

SUNY Oswego was named to the 2013 President‘s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction for the third consecutive year. Oswego was one of under a hundred institutions to achieve the national designation. Highlighted were the college‘s Mentor-Scholar Program, Alternative Break volunteer program and disaster relief projects.

“We just really love helping other people,” student group leader Sophie Marsden told an Alabama TV reporter interviewing her about a Habitat for Humanity project. She led a dozen Oswego students building a house in the Shoals during their alternative spring break. “It‘s just super important to show how much we can actually give back to somebody else.”

Closer to home, the college community mounted a quick response to New Yorkers whose lives and livelihoods were disrupted by Superstorm Sandy. Students and staff held fundraisers and food drives, and the college‘s Small Business Development Center helped business owners apply for disaster assistance.”

Race is a big issue in the United States and the subject is often neglected in educational conversation. To help combat that lack of conversation, join us this Thursday at 6pm in the Campus Center Auditorium as Civic Engagement, Student Association, BSU, LSU, CSA, and ASO discuss Race Relations at SUNY Oswego and answer some important questions about the people who make up our campus.

Over the last decade or so we’ve seen a lot of changes in our world, and more specifically, in the United States. It’s hard to keep track of and it’s difficult to try and understand everything.

Laws get passed, wars start, analysts argue, and seemingly everyone is upset. But at the end of the day there’s one important question that isn’t answered, or asked, nearly enough: What’s changed and how will it influence my life?

This fall, our events will look to answer those questions and any other question you may have about civil or civic rights, laws, acts, and policies.

We’re going to bring in the people that know those laws the best and allow you to ask them questions. We’re going to have your peers help you understand the issues that really matter; the ones that affect you on a personal level and on a daily basis. We’re going to collaborate with groups from all across campus who have the same drive to educate their peers as we do.

And that, ultimately, is our goal: Education. So stay tuned throughout the summer as we continue to put these programs together and we look forward to seeing you in the fall.

If you want to help us we encourage you to email, tweet, or call us any time.

We have embedded three videos that cover The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Voting Rights Act. The sources are Fox News, MSNBC, and The Daily Show. All three share different viewpoints, none of which are shared by SUNY Oswego Civic Engagement. These videos are simply to educate those interested on this issue and the views expressed in the videos are that of the news source and not this site, its writers, Civic Engagement, or SUNY Oswego.

START-UP NY will foster entrepreneurial-ism and job creation on a large scale by transforming public higher education through tax-free communities across the state, particularly upstate.

Details of the START-UP NY legislation include:

Tax-Free: Participating companies in START-UP NY will not pay any taxes (e.g. business/corporate taxes, sales taxes and property taxes) for 10 years. Employees in participating companies will pay no income taxes for the first five years. For the second five years, employees will pay no taxes on income up to $200,000 of wages for individuals, $250,000 for a head of household, and $300,000 for taxpayers filing a joint return. The number of net new jobs eligible for personal income tax benefits will not exceed 10,000 new jobs per year.

Business Eligibility: In order to locate into a START-UP NY tax-free community, a business will need to be aligned with or further the academic mission of the campus, college or university sponsoring the tax-free community. Businesses participating in the program will need to have positive community and economic benefits. Every business must create and maintain net new jobs in order to participate. Businesses must:

Be a new start-up company;

Be a company from out-of-state that is relocating to New York State; or

Be the expansion of an existing New York State company – for example, a company creating a new line of business or opening a new advanced manufacturing facility – as long as it can demonstrate that it is creating new jobs and not moving existing jobs.

According to Duffy, this economic plan is important to the vitality of New York’s economy and its future.

Duffy’s PowerPoint explained how efficient this government has been, passing 3 budgets on time and not adding any new taxes for New York residence. He also spoke about the new teacher evaluations and marriage equality being at the head of Governor Cuomo’s initiatives.

Duffy also said that the administration is looking towards making social change in New York while also showing fiscal responsibility, starting with finding other ways to fixing the issues face by local economies;ways that do not include “simply throwing money at it.” This project is headed by the financial restructuring board, which helps local governments in times of financial stress.

Lieutenant Governor Duffy concluded his talk with how much he cared about upstate [New York]. As former Mayor of Rochester and long time resident of the Central New York area, he understands the hardships that many residents are dealing with. This program, Duffy said, will help revitalize the cities that house SUNY schools and private universities around the state, giving internships to current students and jobs to post-graduates.

Click here for Governor Cumo’s press release regarding Start Up New York

The nominees for both the Agent of Change Award and the Civic Leadership Award are – Brad Frate, Alex Lykins, Stephanie Chytalo, Tucker Sholtes, and Francisco Perez.

First, the Agent of Change Award:

This award recognizes a student who has identified a need on campus or in the community and worked to address the need or solve the problem. The problem-solving project should be identified and initiated by the student who recognizes events, services, or programs that would not otherwise exist on campus or in the community if the student had not initiated action.

Eligibility & Selection Criteria included:

1) Demonstrated leadership, committed to ethical action and social responsibility

2) Has identified a campus or community need or problem and worked to provide a solution.

3) Has initiated action on the problem.

This year there are two recipients:

The first, Director of Greek Affairs for Student Association, has been involved in a number of projects on SUNY Oswego’s campus and the Oswego community including the Quality of Life Campaign. The Quality of Life Campaign was created in order to improve the community’s quality of life as well as college students who reside there during the academic year. Through this objective, Brad and former S.A President Rebecca Witkin, had a goal; to create a relationship with the mayor and chief of police, to effectively communicate to students what the Quality of Life Campaign was and act as the liaisons for the college community. This group met a total of three times this past semester, and the progress made is being continued on through the new SA president (Anthony Smith), and whoever is selected to be the director of Greek Affairs for the next academic year.

The Second, Tucker Sholtes, has been actively involved in helping both communities he considers home; Binghamton and Oswego. During the end of August and beginning of September 2011, the Southern Tier of New York was hit with major flooding caused by the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. Because of the large amount of SUNY Oswego students whose families and friends were affected by the flooding, a Binghamton Area Flood Relief Project was started by Tucker Sholtes with the goal of helping families begin to rebuild both their homes and their lives. Through a collaboration of student organizations, staff and students, five weekend flood relief trips were conducted during the 2011-2012 academic year. Students and staff helped to gut and rebuild homes, rebuild little league baseball fields, construct swing sets at homes that lost them, and replace a community garden. Tucker applied for and received $2600 in grants to support the recovery efforts along with volunteers from SUNY Oswego, high school students and volunteers from the affected region, and from Queens Habitat for Humanity contributed to making this project successful.

Tucker continued his involvement and commitment to the community in 2012-2013. As a leader in Enactus, he has partnered with a number of other student organizations and community members to help develop the Oswego community garden after its inaugural year in 2012. He recruited students to volunteer at the garden in the fall of 2012 and applied for and received a grant through the campus’s ACTS program to help further develop the program.

Next, the Civic Leadership Award:

This award recognizes a student who has demonstrated a sustained commitment to civic engagement on the campus or in the community. The application should (a) provide evidence of civic leadership during the preceding 12 months and (b) demonstrate the student’s capacity to identify and begin to address root causes of campus or community issues through creating public policy change or other efforts focused on creating positive change.

Eligibility & Selection Criteria:

1) Currently a junior or senior in good standing at SUNY Oswego.

2) Demonstrated civic leadership on campus or in the community.

3) Demonstrated capacity to identify and address root causes of campus or community issues.

This year’s recipient, President of the Political Science Club at SUNY Oswego and long time Student Association Senator Francisco Perez, was a huge help during Civic Engagement’s Rock the Vote Campaign. He volunteered countless hours of his time and even went as far as to offer to run two nights of events during Constitution Week; both nights of the Film Series. He was an intricate part of educating students about the important issues and the candidates’ stances during the 2012 election season at events as well as tabling. Finally, his ability to collaborate with Civic Engagement allowed members of his organization to become more involved on campus, in the community, and in their nations political process.

Current Weather

Register to Vote!

The deadline for the final round of funding for New York’s Broadband Program is Tuesday. The funding will cover projects for the last two percent of the state. These are some of the most remote areas, where the terrain can be rough and population is sparse. Jeff Golden works for HaefleTV, a small telecom company in Spencer, New York. He said the public inves […]

The decision to lower outflows from Lake Ontario is being criticized by shoreline residents who are suffering from flooding, but some are defending the move, saying safety of those on the St. Lawrence Seaway was on the line. The International Joint Commission (IJC) reduced discharges from Lake Ontario by only 4 percent last week. Still, that was enough to ma […]